Cross omics risk scores of inflammation markers are associated with all-cause mortality: The Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging

Inflammation is a critical component of chronic diseases, aging progression, and lifespan. Omics signatures may characterize inflammation status beyond blood biomarkers. We leveraged genetics (Polygenic-Risk-Score; PRS), metabolomics (Metabolomic-Risk-Score; MRS), and epigenetics (Epigenetic-Risk-Score; ERS) to build multi-omics-multi-marker risk scores for inflammation status represented by the level of circulating C-reactive protein (CRP), interleukin 6 (IL6), and tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFa). We found that multi-omics risk-scores generally outperformed single-omics risk scores in prediction of all-cause mortality in the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging. Compared with circulating inflammation biomarkers, some multi-omics risk scores had a higher HR for all cause-mortality when including both score and circulating IL6 in the same model (1-SD IL6 MRS-ERS: HR=1.77 [1.15-2.72] vs. 1-SD circulating IL6 HR=1.11 [0.75,1.66]; 1-SD IL6 PRS-MRS: HR=1.32 [1.21,1.45] vs. 1-SD circulating IL6 HR=1.31 [1.12, 1.53]; 1-SD PRS-MRS-ERS: HR=1.62 [1.04, 2.53] vs. 1-SD circulating IL6: HR=1.16 [0.77, 1.74]). In the Nurses Health Study (NHS), NHS II, and Health Professional Follow-up Study with available omics, 1-SD of IL6 PRS and 1-SD IL6 PRS-MRS had HR=1.13 [1.00,1.27] and HR=1.13 [1.01,1.27], among individuals >65years without mutual adjustment of the score and circulating IL6. Our study demonstrated that some multi-omics scores for inflammation markers may characterize important inflammation burden for an individual beyond those represented by blood biomarkers and improve our prediction capability for aging process and lifespan.